


Twinned Flames

by sapphyshipseverything



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Soulmate AU, eventual happy endings with a whole lot of drama on the way, sorry thats not accurate, theres an age gap of 10 years between peter and stiles because i didn't want it to be too creepy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-22
Updated: 2017-12-28
Packaged: 2019-02-18 14:01:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,714
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13101690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sapphyshipseverything/pseuds/sapphyshipseverything
Summary: Everyone usually had some sort of mark from their soulmate.Injuries were common enough in one life that when two lives were connected by them it was strange to see a person without any.Stiles was strange, but he hadn’t always been.





	1. Convoluted Trauma

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first work in the Teen Wolf fandom, so I apologise if the characterisation is way off.  
> Hope you enjoy!

Everyone usually had some sort of mark from their soulmate.

Science was still for the large part baffled by how the link between soulmates functioned, or how exactly a soulmark formed. Some suspected it was a similar phenomenon to mirror neurons, where neurons in the brain were activated both when someone completed an action, and when they watched someone else do the same thing. Just how that concept could be extended to link two people who just happened to be perfect romantic partners together in such a way that they could feel each other’s pain, nobody had any clue. It wasn’t often that soulmates volunteered to be subjected to painful testing. Society simply accepted the bond as a quirk of biology.

Regardless, injuries were common enough in one life that when two lives were connected by them it was strange to see a person without any.

Stiles was strange, but he hadn’t always been.

If anyone ever asked him about his lack of soulmarks, he would laugh and say he didn’t find it unusual anymore, that he barely even remembered what it was like to have a soulmark. It was like asking a person blind from birth if they missed the colour red: the question was so far outside the realm of his experiences that it didn’t even make sense to ask it.

But that wasn’t quite true.

***

Stiles was ten years old when he last felt his soulmate.

He had always been a clumsy child, and when sometimes bruises or scrapes would appear that he couldn’t remember getting, Stiles had first assumed he’d just forgotten when he’d got them. It didn’t seem that impossible, given how many adventures he got himself into and how forgetful he sometimes was, especially when he hadn’t taken his Adderall.

It was only when his parents sat him down to explain soulmarks that he realised that the marks weren’t caused by him, but by his _soulmate._ The thought made him feel giddy, that even though he didn’t know who they were he could still feel his soulmate in this small way. It was evidence that he had one. Jackson told him he was too weird looking for a soulmate, but Stiles knew he was wrong because he could see his soulmarks.

He thought his soulmate must be even clumsier than he was because Stiles always seemed to have soulmarks, even though his marks healed a lot faster than most people’s did. Sometimes, they even looked like claw marks. Maybe his soulmate had a cat, or a dog, that liked to scratch at them. Stiles liked the idea of his soulmate playing with their pets so much they got scratched. They must really care about them.

Stiles didn’t like whatever his soulmate was doing now. He had only just sat down at the kitchen table to do his homework after dinner, daydreaming about how to sneak away to play with Scott without his dad noticing, when something felt weird. His skin felt too hot, as if he’d got into a bath before testing if the water was the right temperature to get in. His chest hurt too, his lungs clogged up or constricted somehow so that it was difficult to properly take a breath.

He didn’t understand.  Stiles wasn’t taking a bath right now, and he hadn’t been running or doing anything to make himself feel out of breath. It must be his soulmate, but usually it was easy to tell when something was caused by his soulmate, at least now he was older and he understood what soulmarks were.  The feeling was different than when he hurt himself, in a way Stiles couldn’t explain, and it faded quickly.

The hot sensation wasn’t fading, like a soulmate’s pain usually would. If anything, it was stronger than a few minutes ago. If he concentrated, the hotness flickered on his skin like the lick of flames, growing almost unbearable. The flames weren’t real for him, but they must have been very real for his soulmate, it seemed. His face and arms were burning with an intensity Stiles had never experienced before; his skin had turned red as the ghosts of burns began to cover most of his body. He couldn’t call for help because all he could do was scream in pain.

Nothing made any sense. His soulmate shouldn’t have been able to hurt him this much, the pain he felt was supposed to be only an echo of his partner’s. Injuries from your soulmate couldn’t truly cause you lasting harm, Stiles reminded himself over and over. What he was feeling didn’t make sense unless his soulmate was in even worse pain, but that couldn’t be right either. Stiles had never felt anything as bad as this, not even when his mom died, and he thought nothing would feel happy ever again.

His dad came running in at Stiles’ screams, but he didn’t know what to do to help. Pain from soulmates wasn’t real, and the painkillers Dad kept in the first aid box for when Stiles was poorly wouldn’t work. The only thing they could do was go to the hospital.

Stiles didn’t remember much after that. The doctors decided to put him to sleep for a few days to give him a break from the unending pain, and the drugs had messed up his memory a bit. When he woke up his body felt different- his nerve endings were almost numb in comparison to the overload he last remembered feeling. Even beyond that, something else wasn’t the same. He didn’t have any soulmarks on his body, not even the ones he had before the incident that got him put here. An uneasy feeling rose in his chest.

His dad was there to explain everything though, and that helped the uneasiness fade, at least to begin with.

There was a fire at the Hale’s house, on the outskirts of Beacon Hills. A really bad one. Almost all of the Hales had died, and his dad said that one of them must have been his soulmate because Stiles had been able to feel the fire even though he wasn’t there.

The Hales had a daughter, Cora, who was Stiles’ age. She had been Stiles’ soulmate, which was why he had felt so much pain. When your soulmate died, it was more painful than a normal soulmark was, because it was normally something only grown-ups had to go through, not kids, and grown-ups could cope with the pain, like the way Dad had coped when he felt Mom die.

“I won’t lie to you kiddo, things won’t be the same. But it will get better with time, I promise you that.”

***

It had been ten years, and Stiles would have to say that things definitely hadn’t got fucking better. If anything, they had gotten worse.

Being a ten year old with a soulmate and being a ten year old without one wasn’t any different. Unless one of your friends was incredibly lucky, nobody had actually found their soulmate yet, and not having one didn’t affect your life in any way aside from saving you from a few bruises. Someone telling you that your soulmate was dead was _sad_ , but it didn’t bum you out for more than a day or two.

Being twenty without a soulmate was different.

Stiles couldn’t get away from couples; they were everywhere. It seemed like every day someone at college had managed to find their soulmate in some adorable, convoluted way. All Stiles had instead was some convoluted trauma, given to him by a person he hadn’t even got to meet yet.

That part seemed especially cruel, that he hadn’t even got to meet Cora before she died. Stiles supposed it would have been worse if he had met her, but being completely excluded from the entire process of finding and having true love hadn’t exactly helped with his own self-loathing growing up.

Even other people who were widowed, like his dad, didn’t understand him or his situation because they missed their soulmates, and wanted them back. They had memories of good times and bad to reminisce over. Stiles had nothing but pain, and that made him angry, not upset.  

No matter what way you sliced it, the whole situation was bullshit, and the fact of the matter was that things would keep on getting worse the older Stiles got. He would never meet his soulmate, he would never start a family, he would always be on his own. When your soulmate existed, there was no point in dating someone else. Sure, if he went looking, he could probably find someone who wanted a casual fling, but why bother? In the end, he would still be alone, and no amount of meaningless sex would change that.

It was safe to say that time had only made Stiles more bitter.

So bitter, in fact, that it took him a month to notice his soulmarks were back.


	2. Help me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can I just say a massive thank you for the amazing response I got to this story? Everyone has been so encouraging and lovely that I've been so excited to write more so that I don't let any of you down. 
> 
> I hope this chapter doesn't disappoint.

It was fair to say that the death of his soulmate was the reason Stiles was so out of touch with his body.  It started off as a coping mechanism, a way to stop obsessing over his lack of marks by ignoring himself altogether. If Stiles didn’t care about anything, if he didn’t care whether his body was lanky or overweight, if he didn’t care whether his hair was long or buzzed short, then he didn’t have to care that the only marks his skin wore were his own.

Apathy was better than hatred, Stiles had found.

For the most part, it wasn’t so much that Stiles ignored his body, more that he chose to focus on other aspects of his life. His friends, his classes, his dad- most of the time he was distracted by a busy schedule. It was only occasionally that his apathy came from a dangerous place.

The last few weeks of assignments had thoroughly kicked his ass, and after long days and nights spent in the library under a caffeine haze, it was taking Stiles some time to come back to himself.

He had lost weight for sure.  The ghosts of his ribs mocked the severe lack of muscles on his torso, while his collarbones were more pronounced than usual against the base of his throat. Standing in front of his bathroom mirror, he wondered how long his dark circles had been deep as bruises under his eyes.  He definitely needed more sleep.

There were real bruises on his arms and one on his hip- not that Stiles could remember precisely when he got them. He vaguely remembered running into the corner of his desk a few nights ago, and he was always accidentally trapping his arm in the cupboard where the mugs were kept in work, so the bruises probably came from there. The thought that they were bruises from someone else, from his soulmate, never even crossed his mind anymore. After all, why would it?

Stiles walked into his bedroom, stopping to grab his phone from his bedside table. There was a message from Scott.

**_Scott: Lunch at Rosie’s?_ **

Stiles looked at the time. If he left now, there would be just enough time before work to grab some delicious, greasy food with his bestie.

**_Stiles: You know I always want curly fries. Be there in 10_ **

***

Scott was, as usual, in a brilliant mood. As long as Stiles had known him, he had only seen him momentarily sad about anything. He was pretty much a puppy in human form. Loyal, slightly dopey and so cute you didn’t even mind if he peed on your leg. Not that Scott went around peeing on Stiles’ leg- but still, the metaphor was apt.

Currently, he was attempting to use his puppy-dog charms to convince Stiles to come out with him for drinks.

‘C’mon dude, I know you think you’ll hate it, but we always end up having so much fun! You haven’t come out with Allie and me in ages, not since Halloween. And it’s nearly Christmas!’

Stiles sighed. ‘Scotty, for starters, it’s only barely December right now.’ Scott was fond of hyperbole, even if he didn’t know how to pronounce the word. ‘And it’s not that I don’t like spending time with you, it’s just that it’s not my thing. Go and have fun with Allie and the gang, and we can meet up another time, okay?’

Stiles was tired of having this debate. Scott was one of the few people he was honest with about his pain at not having a soulmate, he knew how being in a crowd of people waiting to find The One, who had a chance of meeting their The One made him feel. At least, Stiles had told him how it felt. Stiles wasn’t sure Scott was capable of comprehending that kind of sadness, not when he’d met Alison (or Allie for short) when he was sixteen and had been madly in love ever since. He was too much of a hopeless romantic to understand. Stiles tried not to hold it against him most of the time.

‘But it’s not the same when you’re not there, it’s never as fun. Plus, it’s not good for you to stay in all the time. You’re becoming a hermit.’

Stiles must have lapsed in hiding how things really were if Scott thought he was being a hermit. Scott was oblivious to most things.

‘I don’t know if you’ve noticed but I’m not a crab, dumb ass. I don’t have a shell- or claws for that matter.’

Scott rolled his eyes. He wasn’t fazed by his witty comeback. 

‘You can’t isolate yourself because of her.’

Scott never said her name, for fear of upsetting him. Stiles wasn’t sure why he did that. He’d never asked him not to, not once in all the years since the fire, but he knew it was a gesture meant as a kindness. It didn’t stop an unpleasant feeling from spreading in his gut, something that felt like a ten-year-old’s fear.

‘Woah, hold back the punches much, dude?’ Stiles tried to appear confident, cool, collected. He knew if he let any real annoyance bleed into his voice, Scott wouldn’t believe anything he said next. He thought of calm waters, a gentle ebb and flow. ‘It’s not because of her that I don’t want to go.’

‘Why then? Is it something I’ve done?’

Stiles paused, trying to formulate the right reply.

He wanted to say _Yes, dragging me to clubs where I can’t escape how alone I am is what you’ve done_. He wanted to say _Yes, making me play third wheel to you and Alison for years is what you’ve done_. He wanted to say _Yes, having a soulmate that isn’t dead is what you’ve done_.

But he knew that all of those responses were too cruel.

‘No, it isn’t anything you’ve done.’

‘Then _come_. Everyone wants you there, bro.’

How could Stiles say no?

‘What time should I come round to yours?’

Scott smiled, and Stiles knew if he had a tail it would be wagging.

***

Work was a bore. Usually ‘Déjà Brew’- yes, that was the name of the café he worked in (tagline: So good you’ll wish you’d bean here before!)- was busy, so his shift went by quickly, but today it dragged, the lack of customers slowing time to a halt.

Stiles couldn’t even amuse himself by practising the more complicated drinks orders -the ones that took a full paragraph for fussy customers to describe and somehow, he still managed to make wrong - because his manager was on shift with him, and she wouldn’t approve of the waste of ingredients. He had already cleaned the tables, washed all the mugs and placed them back on the shelves where they were kept, and he’d even ‘ _promoted coffee consumption by educating customers’_ earlier like his job description stated he should by explaining how the coffee machine worked to a kind old lady as he made her latte. There was nothing left to do, but somehow there was another hour of his shift to go and Stiles was slowly going insane.

Boredom and ADHD were not a good mix, especially not when both involved Stiles, because now he was hyper-focused on trying to understand how the coffee machine worked, beyond his current of understanding of ‘put the beans in, coffee comes out’. Stiles was still puzzled by how the machine knew what amount of beans was required for each cup. He was close to declaring the process magic when he leant against the wrong button on the front of the machine.

Scalding hot water poured onto where his hand was leaning on the countertop.

Stiles yelped, leaping backwards to remove himself from the source of pain.  He bit back a few unsavoury words, mindful of the few customers who were all now looking his way.  He made his way to the back, out of their sight. He placed his hand under cool running water, in the sink usually used for dishes.

His manager, Wendy, came back to see what had happened.

‘Oh my, you poor thing! How ever did you manage that?’

‘Stupid mistake.’ Stiles said through gritted teeth, as he flexed his hand under the water. The skin on his hand felt tender; it was too tight across the bones of his hand. He wondered if it would crack against the strain. ‘I’ll clean up the mess in just a sec.’

‘Don’t worry about that now, I can take care of that. You just keep it under the water, you don’t want the heat to travel deeper than it already has. I’m sure your soulmate’s cursing your clumsiness right now, honey.’

Wendy laughed, and Stiles tried to return a weak smile.

He concentrated on his hand. The skin across his knuckles was still an angry red, though less so than before he’d placed it under the water. The burn wasn’t throbbing so badly now, his hand mostly numb, the pain only flaring brightly from the edges of the burn that weren’t quite under the stream of water. He rotated his hand slowly, trying to soothe the burn evenly.

She hadn’t meant anything by her comment, and on an intellectual level, Stiles knew that. She didn’t know about his past. In fairness, most people his age were obsessed with their soulmates. She was only trying to cheer him up.

That didn’t stop the anger and the grief rising inside him, a strange mix in his chest that made him want to punch something or sob. It wasn’t just the careless comment, it was the injury itself, that fuelled the feeling.

He couldn’t handle burns anymore, not even minor ones like this. The first time he’d cooked his dad bacon as a treat for Father’s Day he’d had a panic attack. The hissing pricks of the sizzling fat on his hand as he flipped the pieces in the pan were too much of a reminder of Cora, of the fire. He couldn’t separate the sensation from the memories, they were too similar.

He was better able to cope with it, after time, but it was still almost too much to handle. The anxiety loomed, threating to boil over into a full-blown attack, but Stiles fought it. He couldn’t fall apart right here, not with Wendy in the next room who would have too many questions if he couldn’t keep it together.  His hands shook, but he didn’t tumble into a proper panic attack.

He couldn’t wait for his shift to be over so that he could crawl into bed and weep.

***

Stiles groaned as his phone went off. He hadn’t got much sleep after the incident at work, but he knew he needed to try to rest before going out with Scott and the rest later. The panic attack that he’d staved off while at work had reared its ugly head once he got home with twice the force, and in its wake, he felt exhausted, empty and pathetically sad. He sat up, wiping the sleep from his eyes with his good hand, trying to wake himself up. He glanced down at the burn, hopeful that it wouldn’t look as inflamed as it had when he got home.

It did look better, but weirdly there were four scratch marks across the width of his hand. They weren’t painful or very deep, but they weren’t there when he went to bed. Stiles supposed he must have scratched at the burn in his sleep, although it didn’t feel itchy right now- it was still too fresh. Maybe his unconscious self had been irritated by it or something. It was possible. Or maybe he’d scratched at it whilst in his panic attack. That was possible too.

Stiles reached for his phone, squinting at the brightness of the screen.

**_Isaac: Scott said you’re coming out of hibernation tonight? :D_ **

**_Alison: You still coming tonight? Scott and I are getting pizza before we meet Isaac and Lyds if you wanna join_ **

**_Scott: Where are you?_ **

**_Scott: Stiles?_ **

**_Scott: Stiiiiilllllllles_ **

**_Scott: STILES_ **

**_Scott: S T I L E S_ **

**_Scott: Are you coming?_ **

**_Scott: See you at the club, then. :/_ **

Fuck. It was almost eleven, which meant Stiles had overslept. He wanted to go out now even less than he had earlier, but he couldn’t let his friends down, even he wasn’t that much of an asshole. He typed out a quick reply to Scott to say he was on his way, before he pulled on a clean shirt and combed his fingers through his hair. A quick spritz of the nice aftershave Lydia had bought him for his birthday was all he had time for before he ran out the door.

***

The club was crowded when he got there, full of college students looking to get drunk or get lucky. Stiles wasn’t twenty-one, so technically he shouldn’t have even been able to get in, and he doubted everyone around was of-age either, but the bar turned a blind eye to the legality of things in favour of raking in the money. Stiles wasn’t exactly sure how they managed to keep their liquor licence, but the place was a Beacon Hills institution, so Stiles was pretty sure the proprietors must know what they’re doing.

It took him ten minutes to find his friends, hanging out in one of the quieter corners of the club away from the mayhem of the bar. Isaac and Alison looked happy to see him, and Scott only pouted for a moment at his lateness before it gave way to a grin at him being there. Lydia looked pissed at him, though that might just have been her expression at the general debauchery happening around her. She didn’t much like clubs either. 

‘I didn’t think you were gonna show man!’ Scott enveloped him in a tight bear hug.

‘We thought you’d bailed on us, Stilinski.’ Isaac grinned at him from across the table, his eyes full of mischief, giving away the few beers he’d had before Stiles had got there.

‘I was about to send a search party out for you!’ Alison laughed, a warm smile on her lips.

Stiles was grateful that his friends were so forgiving.

‘Yeah, I’m sorry about that, I took a nap after work and I lost track of time. Completely my fault.’

‘It is, but well… you’re here now and that’s all that counts. Let’s get you some shots to catch you up to the rest of us!’

After that the rest of the night got hazy.

It was now some time close to three am, and Stiles had had far too much to drink.

Stiles could remember that first shot of tequila, a double of some bottom-shelf bottle that was washed down with a squeeze of lemon and a lick of salt to take away the taste.  He also had two or three beers minimum, because Isaac and Scott had definitely each bought a round of drinks for everyone, Stiles included, and he’d bought himself a drink too. Lydia had bought him a cocktail too, something fruity that was shockingly alcoholic.

 

He lent against the sandpaper-rough bricks of the outside wall of the club, trying to clear his head of the alcohol. He couldn’t quite remember how he’d got here, he only remembered having an ugly jealous feeling in his stomach as he watched Scott and Alison dance, their gazes focused only on each other even as the crowd swarmed around them, and the thought that he needed to get out of there, away from everything.

Now he was away, and he had absolutely no desire to go back inside. He couldn’t face any more of this tonight, not after what happened at work, and he knew if he stayed he would end up getting angry with his friends, even though it wasn’t them he was angry at.

It was the universe. It was the idea of true love. It was the fire. It was his life.

Stiles concentrated on taking deep breaths, inhaling and exhaling nice and slow. The warm buzz of the alcohol had faded, leaving Stiles struggling not to throw up. 

He wanted to go home.

***

Stiles felt like he shared his head with a woodpecker.

The sound of the coffee beans being ground in the machine was threatening to send him over the edge, the obnoxious noise pressing into his head, demanding that he pay attention to it even though he really would rather not, thanks.

Not only was he nursing a seriously annoying hangover, but his feet ached, beyond the normal I’ve-been-standing-for-hours-serving-customers ache that always accompanied a shift at work. His feet were covered in scratches and scrapes as if he had run a marathon through the woods barefoot. He supposed it was possible he had walked home, because in all honesty, Stiles had no idea how he managed to wake up safely in his bed this morning. It wasn’t impossible drunk-him had decided walking home barefoot was a great idea.

Stiles was miserable. He should have called in sick, but he needed the money to pay rent and buy food, because being an adult sucked. It was hard to maintain his upbeat, customer service voice when he was basically a pile of exhausted crap in human form. He didn’t have much patience for the man throwing a tantrum because they didn’t have any sugar free hazelnut syrup left.

‘I want to speak to your manager! This service is unacceptable, I am a paying customer, I should be treated with respect!’

Stiles flashed his teeth at the man and mumbled about getting her from out back. He sent Wendy to deal with him, glad she was actually working the same shift again, while he took a moment to try to gather himself.

Even before last night, he had been running on empty, but now Stiles felt faint with exhaustion. He didn’t know how much more of this he could take. It seemed like life was always going to be exhausting. He was always going to have to deal with balancing work with friends and studying and taking care of himself, and he was always going to have to do it alone. He longed for someone to take care of him, just for a while, so that he didn’t have to think.

The universe had a strange sense of humour because it was at that moment that suddenly things changed.

A sharp, lancing pain went through Stiles' arm, on the same side as his burn from the previous day, which made him cry out. There was blood welling up from shallow cuts near the crook of his elbow, slightly messy at the edges, but shallow like a papercut with the sting of one too. They hadn’t been there a second ago, and since Stiles had been standing in the middle of the small room that served as a kitchen, trying not to have a mental breakdown, he knew he couldn’t have caused them.

A shiver of fear went through him.

When he finally took his hand away from his arm, where he was trying to stop his blood from dripping on the floor, he could see there were two words carved in his skin that weren’t there before.

‘Help me.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry not sorry for the cliffhanger, guess you'll have to keep reading oh noooo...  
> comments/kudos/criticism appreciated.  
> Also a question for you guys: do you want a glimpse of things from Peter's pov, or should we stick solely with Stiles?  
> <3

**Author's Note:**

> kudos/comments/criticism appreciated!  
> I haven't posted fanfic in a long time and I'm slightly terrified, can you tell?


End file.
